Coach Jorge Jesus is one of the main names when it comes to club management in both Portugal and Brazil. He’s got legend status at both Portugal’s Benfica and Brazil’s Flamengo, both clubs are the biggest in their respective countries. Jesus managed Benfica from 2009 to 2015 and then went on an overseas adventure and ended up landing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2019 to lead Flamengo to a treble – click on link to get to know more about the superb Flamengo year.
We can say that Jesus carries on a double life. In Portugal, the coach is known as “JJ”. Then, in Brazil, the Portuguese coach was nicknamed “Mister” due to his exquisite way of dressing, pulling up black suits and ties before important games. Despite managing Flamengo for only a year-time, Jesus is the club’s most successful manager. He won nothing but 5 titles in one year with the club, including a Copa Libertadores – UEFA Champions League equivalent – which the Red & Black club hadn’t won for almost 40 years.
At the age of 65, having spent half of it as a football coach, Jorge Jesus has managed to win 20 titles throughout his career. Benfica is the club where the Portuguese coach won the most titles, with 10 cups won for the Lisbon-based club.
Apart from Benfica and Flamengo, the Portuguese also managed other clubs in Portugal and even in the Middle East. These were:
- Sporting CP
- Braga
- Al Hilal
The manager also won trophies for these clubs and we’ll list them:
- BRAGA (2008-2009)
- 1 UEFA Intertoto Cup (2008)
- BENFICA (2009-2015)
- 3 Portuguese Liga NOS titles (2009–10, 2013–14, 2014–15)
- 1 Portuguese Cup (2013–14)
- 5 League Cup (2009–10, 2010–11, 2011–12, 2013–14, 2014–15)
- 1 Candido de Oliveira Super Cup (2014)
- SPORTING (2015-2018)
- 1 League Cup (2017–18)
- 1 Candido de Oliveira Super Cup (2015)
- AL-HILAL (2018-2019)
- 1 Saudi Arabian Super Cup (2018)
- FLAMENGO (2019)
- 1 Copa Libertadores (2019)
- 1 Brazilian Serie A (2019)
- 1 Brazilian Super Cup (2020)
- 1 Rio de Janeiro state tournament (2020)
- 1 South America Super Cup (2020)
Pretty good numbers for a relatively unknown manager in Europe. Jesus has established himself as one of the greatest managers in the world, at least, from a South American perspective. The magnitude of his one-year stay at Flamengo was something unique that made lots of clubs rethink their plans for the future.
He not only brought the European class to an archaic football world but also made a lot of managers fear for their jobs as the Flamengo success was so big that other clubs have been bringing second-tier European managers over Brazilian ones.
Right now, the Portuguese went from Mister back to JJ as he put pen to paper to sign a contract with his beloved Benfica. Will he be able to resurrect the Lisbon club? Probably, but it’s unlikely that he will repeat the blitzkrieg success he had at Flamengo